Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Six months ago, when the owner first met Lin An, the latter had come into his store holding a dirty little puppy in his clothes, covered in tar, emaciated and small, looking like it was on its last breath.

Since he only sold pet supplies, he advised Lin An to visit a veterinary clinic.

At the time, Lin An, with his head down and hair covering his eyes, seemed gloomy and timid, speaking in a tearful voice, saying he was afraid of crowded places.

Stammering, he begged the owner to take the puppy to the clinic, offering money for the medical expenses, which led the owner to close the shop and go to the hospital with the puppy.

The little mongrel was not only coated in tar but also had broken hind legs and was infected with parvovirus; it cost a lot of money to save its life.

And all that money was paid by Lin An.

A few weeks after the puppy was discharged, Lin An contacted the owner again, asking him to help find a home for the puppy.

But who would adopt a scrawny mongrel plagued with illness and an unsightly patchy coat due to its shaved fur?

In the end, Lin An took the puppy home, and the owner took the opportunity to upsell his store’s expensive dog food and other products, surprisingly, Lin An bought them all.

Over time, the owner came to understand Lin An's character: wealthy with social anxiety and a penchant for cleanliness, unable to say no to others.

Therefore, in recent months, he frequently stocked up on expensive goods and would take them to Lin An's doorstep, utter a few soft words, play the sympathy card, and Lin An would buy everything.

Just a few days ago, the owner even brought a group of friends to barge into Lin An's home, exploiting his social anxiety and obsession with cleanliness, forcing him to buy a backlog of their goods.

The owner didn't look closely, but he remembered clearly, there were over a dozen boxes of canned and compressed food, as well as various knives, cooking utensils, tents, and more.

Not only could these supplies last for months, but they also provided all the necessary equipment should one choose to leave Chu Xi City.

It was the ideal place to hide.

Sprinting with an axe in hand, cries and screams echoed from the residential buildings on both sides, with visible bloodstains streaking the windows.

Fortunately, there were few people on the road, and the scattered wandering zombies moved slowly, only sluggishly giving chase to anyone passing by.

He had planned to break into Lin An's home if he didn't open the door in the next few days, even secretly making a duplicate key, but now there was no time for that.

He was well-prepared, though. Even if he couldn’t break the door down, Lin An lived on the third floor, and he could climb up using the downspout by the balcony. If the window was locked, he'd just break it with the axe.

Reaching the building, the owner looked up to see a silhouette standing by the floor-to-ceiling window on the third floor.

The lights were off inside, and judging by the figure, it appeared to be Lin An, standing quietly by the window, indiscernible whether he was a zombie or human.

The owner squinted his eyes; he knew Lin An despised him. Even if he hadn't turned, he would never willingly open the door.

He would have to take matters into his own hands.

Tucking the axe into his waistband and stepping onto the bracket holding the downspout, the owner reached for the protruding part of the first-floor balcony to pull himself up.

Suddenly, his foot was grabbed.

Startled, the owner looked down to see a familiar face smeared with blood, twisted and terrifying.

The scar-faced man’s mouth was caked with thick blood, flesh remnants visible as he opened it, murky, sanguine eyes fixated on the owner as he pulled him down.

"Damn it!" The owner desperately kicked at him, trying to shake him off.

The scar-faced man let out a low, bestial growl, a sound that was both threatening and furious, his grip tightening.

Fingers clinging to the balcony's edge were slipping, and in his frustration, the owner couldn't reach his axe, needing to deal with the zombie first.

Letting go, he fell directly onto the zombie, causing it to release its hold.

The owner readjusted and pulled out his axe, swinging it fiercely at the zombie below.

The scar-faced man’s head was nearly cleaved in two, his shrill roar echoing as he struggled violently.

Yanking the axe free, the zombie’s brain matter, a mix of red and white, oozed from the split, spilling everywhere, and yet the scar-faced man still wasn't dead.

Clenching his teeth, the owner delivered several more brutal strikes to the zombie's head, his expression ferocious, eyes filled with a venom and ferocity surpassing that of the zombie beneath him.

At last, the scar-faced man ceased moving, his head a gruesome sight, battered beyond recognition.

Panting heavily, the owner stood up, then paused as if struck by a thought, crouching down again to probe the zombie's head with his axe.

"Don't novels often mention a core inside a zombie's head? How come there's nothing here?" he muttered to himself. After confirming there was indeed nothing, he stood back up, shaking the blood and brain matter from the axe, and scowled in disgust, "Disgusting."

Catching his breath, he looked up again to find Lin An still on the balcony, seemingly waving at him this time?

What did that mean?

Without any light in the room, the owner couldn't see clearly, only making out Lin An's slow hand motion.

Was he beckoning him to come up? Or...

He couldn't understand Lin An's intentions, but it seemed that he hadn't turned into a zombie.

That was good. With food and drink here, and a beauty in his arms, recalling his first visit to Lin An's home and the latter's panicked face for forgetting to wear a mask, the owner let out a snort of laughter; his mood was surprisingly good amidst the chaos.

A faint noise from behind wiped the smile off his face, and he gripped the axe tightly, a sudden premonition of dread filling him.

Turning around, he saw two ghostly zombies closing in.

He had to hurry up, or more zombies would come. The owner quickly headed towards the wall, but after only a step, he felt a sharp pain in his foot.

The zombie wasn't dead yet!

Despite the scar-faced man's head being nearly severed from his body, he could still move, his fangs now piercing through the owner's black leather shoe, deeply embedding into his foot.

The owner bit down on his teeth, sweat beading on his forehead, as he chopped off the scar-faced man's head with his axe, but the sharp fangs had already pierced through the top of his foot.

With two more zombies closing in from behind, the owner picked up the severed head and threw it at them, blood gushing from his foot. He couldn't waste any more time and continued to climb the wall in pain.

But the injury slowed him down, and the two zombies behind him had already grabbed his feet.

Dragged down, he was forced to continue fighting the zombies.

But luck was not on his side this time. The zombies wandering the complex gradually converged on him, joining the fray.

In his final moments before being devoured by the horde of zombies, the owner saw Lin An still at the window, waving his hand; he finally understood. Lin An had seen the zombies behind him all along, knowing he had no chance to escape.

In the darkness, he seemed to see his opponent's fair, flawless face, wearing a sneer of mockery as they said their final goodbye: "Farewell, you bastard, for the last time."

This was the boss's last thought before his death.

*

Lin An, cleaning at home, noticed a smudge on the balcony glass.

It wasn't really a smudge, just a very small black dot on the clear, shiny glass, likely an impurity that had fallen in during the glassmaking, now melded into the glass itself.

But to Lin An, whose mind wasn't working well at the moment, it was a stain.

He took a small white cloth and earnestly wiped at the stain, as if the noises of fighting below mattered less than getting the glass spotless.

As he wiped, the scent of food wafted to him, "I'm so hungry," Lin An thought, swallowing his saliva, his gaze finally drifting from the black spot down below.

A horde of filthy zombies surrounded a heap of equally filthy flesh, with another disheveled zombie nearby.

Lin An paused, reluctantly continuing to wipe the glass.

It was like being hungry and seeing someone eating delicious food, and as you're about to join, you find they're grabbing the food with their hands, stuffing it into their mouth while bits fall out, their hands and face smeared with grease, and when they notice your interest, they spit into the food.

Suddenly, you're not hungry at all.

Although famished, it seemed bearable for now.

On the third day of the apocalypse, the whole city lost power.

The blackout had no effect on Lin An, who remained peacefully at home as if time stood still.

His daily life consisted of feeding the dog, providing water, cleaning the house, washing things, wiping glass, and then waiting silently by the door for food to pass by.

Until the tenth day of the apocalypse, when the water supply to Lin An's home was cut off.

Looking at the pile of dog waste in the toilet, he felt terrible.

Lin An: "Ugh~"